Chrisprattalpharaptr
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User ID: 1864
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
24d ago
Yeah, I knew asking Jiro to be arsed to write more than two sentences was a pretty monumental ask. You shouldn't be so pessimistic though! Hope springs eternal and all that.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
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24d ago
Happy to, conditional on:
- You bothering to write more than lazy, snarky, single sentence replies to minimize the asymmetry of effort between us.
- Define outgroup.
- Define good faith.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
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6mo ago
No they won't.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
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11mo ago
My righteous policy of AR-15s for self-defense versus your policy of open air drug markets that permanently break people's brains is a Straussian conjugation if I've ever heard one.
Your description of both 'policies' or platforms is massively lacking in nuance and accuracy, and in both cases ignores the tradeoffs involved. Pretending that gun ownership is an unalloyed good while being soft-on-crime is an unalloyed ill is just silly.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
24d ago
So no I don't think that the other side of immigration is doing anything in good faith.
As evidence that your outgroup is acting in bad faith, you bring up legislation from 40 years ago. 2/3rds of those voters are probably dead, while the majority of voters today (myself included) weren't alive or were far too young to vote for your compromise. Your imagined voter who supported amnesty in the 80s knowing that we'd be in the situation we are today as part of some dastardly bad-faith plan to bring in more illegal immigrants is nonexistent.
"But Chris!" you say, scurrying back to your bailey, "I didn't mean voters today are acting in bad faith because of legislation from 40 years ago, I'm saying they push compromises in bad faith knowing that they're meaningless and we'll be back where we started 40 years from now! How could you not parse that from my two sentence effortpost that I worked on meticulously to avoid any ambiguity?"
To which I say, you aren't offering any evidence that these compromises are offered in bad faith, you're pretending to read the minds of your outgroup and ascribe the worst possible impulses to them. I believe that the majority of Americans support a middle path, flanked by people like the one I replied to and open borders folks. Biden, the media, and a majority of voters all knew the administration had a problem with immigration leading up to the election which is why they tried to craft a compromise to address it. You won't get a mea culpa, but it was pretty obvious throughout the summer that the status quo was unsustainable.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
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10mo ago
The subreddit is full of yuppies who live in Mount Vernon or Fed Hill or one of the 5 other safe clean neighborhoods in the city, who will insist up down and sideways that they actually like the city. The food is great! There's so much to do! It's vibrant! There's an art scene! Bullshit. All of it.
I've spent over a decade living in the northeast, bouncing around a few cities while making what most here would consider poverty wages until recently. I've never lived in Baltimore specifically, although I have spent a few years in multiple places with similar demographics and reputations. Maybe your experience is colored by your proximity to the courthouse or something, maybe it's a pre/post-COVID thing but...I've just never encountered things like that? I'd routinely go out every Friday and Saturday night and walk/bike a couple miles through the downtown area to get home at 2-3am completely hammered and nobody ever bothered me. Do you all go out of your way looking for trouble? Do things change when you're significantly older and look like an easy mark? I didn't think I was particularly intimidating, but who knows.
In the last ~2 years there has been a noticeable uptick in the number of homeless people (the opioid epidemic making itself felt?), but they were at first largely confined to the homeless encampment (our equivalent of SF's mission district I suppose). Once that got cleared, they all moved to congregate in a public space which honestly hasn't been any better. At some point, people will get sick of it and I imagine they'll clear it out more aggressively and institutionalize the homeless at a significant cost. In the meantime, my quality of life and lived experience haven't been affected in the slightest - never been mugged, never had anything broken into, never had my bike/car stolen, never been harassed or attacked. I've enjoyed all the cities I lived in and don't have any desire to move elsewhere.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
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24d ago
The following is a nakedly partisan take, but that's because you asked for a poll of opinions. These are my sincerely held beliefs; there's no room for anyone to argue me out of them, but I'm not expecting anyone to share it, either: there is simply no good faith left at all in my heart. my political opponents, and they will never operate in good faith. There is no negotiation in existential conflict. There is only the will and the power to act.
'You see Charlie, these liberals are trying to assassinate my character. And I can't change their mind. I won't change my mind, because I don't have to. Because I'm an American. I won't change my mind on anything, regardless of the facts that are set out before me. I'm dug in. And I'll never change.' For your viewing pleasure - one of my favorite clips, and not even for that quote.
Every time I read one of these pathetic tough guy screeds, my first thought is to laugh at the absolute lack of self-awareness. 'Reee, my outgroup is full of animals who would never compromise or act in good faith! This justifies me never acting in good faith either. I can't wait for my fellow citizens to get mown down by the stasi for disagreeing with me!'
My second thought is to reply, 'Say it louder, and into the microphone, please.' Seriously. Go hop on Fox News and give an interview about how you want to shoot protestors and cruelty is the point and God praise Donald Trump. Write your angry, impotent screeds and spread them as widely as possible - under your real name if you can. There's really nothing better for democratic electoral odds than platforming people like you.
Or, and I hold little hope for a week-old-probably-troll account, you could dig yourself out of your sad little internet radicalization hole and stop holding so much hate in your heart. I guarantee your life would be better for it.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
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11mo ago
Oh, you can't tell which I'm talking about because they're equivalent?
Yeah, pretty much.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
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1mo ago
Canada used to be seen as a “nicer America”, an uncontroversially well-running state.
No, it didn't. Or if it was, it was by ignorant people living half a world away teaching your high school geography class. This is so far from Canadians' self-conception that at least on this point, I can confidently say that you have no idea what you're talking about.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
9mo ago
Meanwhile, what radicalizes a guy to try shooting Trump? It doesn't happen in a vacuum. It comes on ten years of media calling Trump a threat to democracy, a traitor selling the country to Russia, a violent fascist thug who needs to be executed, take him out and beat him, put his severed bloody head on TV, talk about blowing up the White House -- what, I apologized, and Trump deserved it for all his violent rhetoric, I can't believe Republicans would try shooting him like this.
In that case, do you think that Trump and/or the conservative media ecosystem are responsible for the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the El Paso walmart shooting or the Buffalo shooting in 2022?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
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11mo ago
But you weren't comparing LoTT to the New York Times or the Washington Post, were you?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
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7mo ago
Premiums are only one component of healthcare costs. A "straight line" is one thing, the slope of the line is what matters. Family premiums are up 89% since 2008, compared to ~43% cumulative inflation.. Outcomes and features have degraded since ACA, I'd argue.
The initial argument was:
So really, health insurance companies can't just deny claims and keep the money. They only way for them to make more money is to let the cost of everything skyrocket, raise premiums sky high, and then keep 20% of a much larger pot.
I agree, the slope of the line is what matters. If your argument is that Obamacare increased premiums, you would expect to see the slope of the line increase after the ACA was passed, correct? Do you agree that that is not what we see, and that the post I was replying to was incorrect, pending them making some kind of rebuttal?
Do you have any data about outcomes deteriorating? That doesn't seem like a straightforward thing to measure.
However, I don't think "things continued to get way worse at the same rate" counts as a victory.
It doesn't, it counts as Whiningcoil being wrong. You're making a new argument and moving the goalposts.
Obamacare accelerated the inevitable failure of this healthcare system and was only engineered to be a pernicious trojan horse for single-payer.
Maybe. No offense, but I'll believe it when I see data.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
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8mo ago
Just a bit suspicious that our polls are historically accurate within a small margin of error, then all of a sudden Trump comes along and we have three huge polling errors in a row, right?
Anyways, we're still waiting on Ukraine mea culpas three years in. At this point, I expect they'll be back in the next few years when Putin finally prevails to say I told you so. And the election blackpillers will be here in 2028 when the R's lose to say it's always been rigged and that you're wrong.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1yr ago
The joke was that LoTT could very well have more of them than ye olde gender studies journal, although I had difficulty finding either her net worth or the ballpark budget of a humanities journal.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1mo ago
It'll probably prompt Rightists to make thinly veiled comments, if it keeps going. About minecraft.
You often talk about worldview, predictions, updating, etc. Do you have an update to your worldview based on this thread?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
5mo ago
The fact the the Biden spending spree in the last months of his administration left the government completely broke and at the debt ceiling.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by a Biden spending spree? My impression was that congress and Biden signed a continuing resolution bill to fund the government through March so that Trump could enact his priorities, and that Biden can only spend money appropriated by congress. Are you arguing that Biden increased spending in some way in the last few months of his presidency? And you think that Biden should have raised the debt ceiling in the last few months of a lame duck presidency?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
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9mo ago
Well, apparently your neighbors will rat you out and presidential candidates will complain about immigrants like me savaging the pets and local wildlife of ($town). Especially if I'm Elmer Fudding around with a shotgun in my tiny suburban backyard, as fun as that might be.
Then there's the possibility of heavy metal contamination. I'm probably willing to risk it given that I don't like in some crazy repurposed industrial zone, but still.
Otherwise nothing wrong beyond being ostracized by my neighbors.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1mo ago
If either or both of them dedicate significant resources to striking at each other, then that will confirm that the breach is serious in nature, and that will bode extremely ill for my faction.
...why? I mean, firstly, 'significant resources' is load-bearing here in a way that's difficult to falsify. Secondly, I recoil at the use of 'my faction' (where's the guy who was trying to address the address the hate in his heart with his pastor, or something like that?) but I guess that ship has sailed. Thirdly, what does it matter to you whether Trump cancels Elon's contracts or Elon doesn't show up for republicans next election? Your coalition is the same, the people who vote for guns and the people who vote for abortion and the people who vote for whatever else will turn out in 2028.
Either way, I'll go way out on a limb and predict that the presidency goes D in 2028, without knowing who either candidate will be. In the grand scheme of things, Elon-Trump beef is irrelevant.
this would be evidence that our leadership is fundamentally dysfunctional, and I would expect that to manifest in other ways in relatively short order.
Again, why? Obviously your leadership is fundamentally dysfunctional - how can you read what Elon and Trump are tweeting at each other and conclude anything else? Would you ever behave that way, let alone behave that way if you were representing a nation? They're just dysfunctional in ways that you or your 'faction' approves of.
What updates beyond this would you recommend?
You should probably update on at least the stability of Elon. Whether the drug of choice is ketamine or culture war, something degraded significantly in the last couple years, and I say that as a papa Elon fanboy.
I'd say you should probably update on Trump as well, but I expect you already think he's bonkers and love him anyways or you'll never change your opinion, so that's probably not a worthwhile conversation.
thinly-veiled
Was this meant to link to a pop song? If so, the reference went over my head.
Where do you expect the thinly-veiled minecraft references to be directed?
From Trump supporters, towards Elon.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
1mo ago
It was after this paragraph that I decided to just stop reading.
Sad. You'll never get to experience my devastating counterargument. Best of luck to you - I'm eager to see how all the predictions shake out, although you haven't shared many here.
But my argument here was not that China Good: solely that allowing Chinese development in the first place, instead of pursuing a more negative-sum strategy, was not a blunder or a betrayal of American self-interest. America actually can benefit from global growth (eg by getting bailed out in a crisis, after having become a pillar of global economy). Chinese growth prior to this phase of conflict is, therefore, not evidence of American Deep State being incompetent.
I think you should expand this take into it's own post for discussion of the group. It's...an interesting one.
For the contrary example, look no further than the EU and Canada. They have comparable population quality, are at the same stage of development, and share many of your natural advantages. How have the last 20 years been for them? Are they famed for their Deep State? I rest my case.
This one too. Can't speak for the EU, but the argument that Canada would be as powerful as the US (or I imagine you'd retreat to a motte of achieve comparable GDP growth rates to the US given that you haven't actually specified any metric by which to compare them over the last 20 years) if they only had a more competent deep state is a hilarious take.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
4mo ago
You should:
-
Yes. Safe space. I think we all know the failure mode of this one.
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Double down on your commitment to free speech. Let the Jewposters have their say, and treat them like anyone else. If they're polite and they bring receipts, who are we to judge their speech any more than judge those who hate democrats or think that mandatory schooling is the greatest injustice of all time? You'd win my respect, although we probably also all know the failure mode of this option too.
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Give me the satisfaction of admitting to ourselves that we're basically reddit with a rightward slant and that free speech maximalism is dumb. Moderation (heh) in all things.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
5mo ago
And then, from what little I know about Nixon, he created the EPA and the endangered species/clean air acts. He cozied up to China and brought them into the fold. And some mix of foreign interventionism without boots on the ground? What does that even code as anymore?
My broader point is that it was so far in the past (at least to me) that I wasn't interested in making a partisan point, I was just trying to gesture towards a cultural touchstone I thought most people would recognize. I didn't realize it was such a sore point.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
8mo ago
I think I'm missing your point... are you suggesting that we can't criticise politicians
No, I think you do get my point - it's just a bit funny that you dismiss my criticism as superficial for Thatcher and Vance, but (and I make some assumptions here not knowing you) would accept my criticisms of Harris as being a historically bad candidate. Probably Clinton as well.
The point is that almost all of these 1-2 sentence comments about Harris being an unlikable whore who sucked her dick to the vice presidency is about as substantial and knowledgeable as me saying Vance is a 1%er puppet of the SV elite. I don't think these people know anything about politics, have never worked a political campaign or crafted a bill or written a political speech.
But hey, it sure is easy to wake up the morning after and rant about how the losing candidate was historically bad and the dems are a bunch of morons.
are you saying that you can't criticise the Dems for consistently running poor candidates since Obama?
I'm saying they weren't bad candidates, depending on what you mean by bad candidate. If you strictly mean they lost elections, well, I guess Biden wasn't a bad candidate? Or do you mean something else?
Isn't this pretty much true for every US election ever?
Maybe to put it differently, would you have taken 50-50 odds for Biden v. Trump in 2020? Or would you have taken 50-50 odds for Obama v. McCain?
So far as anyone could tell, it seemed like a true toss up last night. People with money and reputations on the line with access to similar information as the most of us agreed those were the odds.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
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8mo ago
What do you mean? Of course it's rigged. Every election Trump massively outperforms his polls; what other explanation could there be besides Republicans stuffing the ballot boxes?
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
10mo ago
On the negative side, we definitely select for unemployed and low time preference people who fail to take the necessary precautions to not become pregnant. On the positive side, we select for people who want to have children and are as such likely to treat them better and likely to prepare themselves better in general. We select to some degree against both hedonism and doomerism, since both inclinitations straightforwardly lead towards being childless, and instead in favor of certain kinds of optimistic long-termism, which includes in particular religiosity. We select somewhat against education in general, but also more specifically for pragmatic people that don't waste an endless amount of time getting stuck in dead-end endeavours (which includes certain educations) throughout their early adulthood. And so on.
Is any of this based on data?
Unless we force people to have kids against their will, easily accessible, reliable contraceptives will always mean a substantially reduced TFR until we have had time to select in favor of wanting kids directly.
Okay, based on your model, how rapidly do you think you can select for this trait and how low do you think the world population would drop prior to leveling out? Why would you expect selection for 'wanting children' to be more robust than 'too irresponsible to use contraception?'
And most of all, given that you blame the precipitous drop in TFR on cultural factors, why would you focus so much on genetics when cultural shifts can obviously happen much more rapidly? By the same token that:
First, I want to mention that almost all population projections I'm aware of completely ignore even the possibility of evolution and selection. Plenty of them are just simple regressions that implicitly assume a homogenous population. This is, of course, complete bunk.
Your prediction relies on constant cultural conditions lasting ten? Twenty? Who knows how many generations it would take to select for fertility in the presence of contraception, modulo the kind of actual genetic engineering that today remains deep, deep science fiction.
Indeed. I can forgive you for this one instance, though.
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